An update

Someone asked for a blog update, and so, here's an update.

I'm finishing up the first draft on Portals of Infinity #11.

Once that's done I really need to get the sequel to Summer's End (the book I wrote for Baen Books) done. I actually have a ton of work I want to do for Baen, so I'll be writing a bunch of those over the next year or two.

The next Valens Heritage book will most likely be about Troy. Then another one about Mihalis. At least one of those should be done by the end of this year. After I finish those there may be a collection of shorts and novellas dealing with some of the other characters in the family. I also need to write the book (or books) I hinted at, at the end of the last Mihalis book.

Once I get through those, I'll have to think about what I wish to write next as Jan Stryvant. Right now I have a lot of stuff lined up under John Van Stry, where it's been the opposite for the last several years. There is a LOT that I can do in the Valens Universe - it's pretty ripe with potential. So on that, I'll just have to see.

On the personal front I messed up my arm (somehow) and I need to take a bunch of drugs and do physical therapy for the next few weeks. Hopefully it'll solve the problem, because it hurts like a bitch. I'm trying to get back to building guitars in the evenings, because I enjoy it and it relieves a certain amount of stress. We're still in a drought here and it's definitely causing issues. I wish it would friggin rain already. 

Part of what sucked up a LOT of my time last month was the local con I went to, because my publisher was there and I had two series I want to sell her that we discussed. So I had to write the entire plot line for two entire series. She's interested in both of them so I need to start on one of them and get it written, though again, need to write Troy #2 as well. Yes, lots of work to do and I'm -hoping- that certain things stop happening, where I have to go get involved in other folk's problems because they need help (hope that's non-specific enough). I really just want to get back to writing and putting out a book every month. 

I suspect a lot of you folks out there would like that as well.

So yes, I've been busy. No, I haven't been dead. Not much else to say beyond that right now.

I will be at Fencon this weekend

 I will be at Fencon this weekend, as well as the signing at Half-Price books tomorrow (Thursday - Sept 15th)

Saturday I'll be there the longest, though I do have to pop out at noon to go home and let the dogs out for a while. If you're there, look me up.

So Queen Elizabeth has passed.

I'm reminded of a story I heard more than a few years ago. I regret that I do not remember who told it. It was someone I knew in passing. His father, for all that he was an American, was a big fan of the Queen and sent her a Christmas card every year. This person that I knew had occasion to be at an 'official ceremony' in another country, that the Queen was attending.

When he was introduced, the Queen asked him about his father, to which he told her that he had died several years ago. She then replied with something along the line of 'Oh, we'd wondered why we'd stopped getting his card every year.'

That right there says a lot.

They were completely blown away by the simple fact that the Queen had noticed.

Oh, and they ended up on the Queen's Christmas card list after that.

A Brief Intermission

 Just letting you know that it probably won't be until September until I publish another book. There are a couple of reasons for this, of course, none of which fall under the category of 'Bad'.

The first is that I'd been planning to take about a month off after LiberyCon. Unfortunately, that got postponed a week, as I was behind schedule on getting 'No Place Like Home' out. I'd hoped to get away for a week or two, as in travel, but things are still messed up in a lot of the rest of the country and the last thing I wanted to have happen was to be forced into some pointless quarantine. Especially as the governor in one of those places is a couple asshat (and I'm not talking about California this time either). 

Of course I had a LOT of things at home that needed attention and I spent a couple of weeks wrenching on my motorcycles which have been poorly neglected for the last year. Then there were a lot of non-writing writing work that I wanted to get done, and a fair deal of it did get done. But there's still a lot more to do and thankfully I now have help with that.

There's also some stuff I had to do for Baen Books, in regards to the book I have coming out with them come December. 

Now, going forward, I want to get the sequel to that book done. Once that's done, it goes to Baen, so that will also slow down anything new coming out. I have a number of things in my head right now as well that I want to get down in some sort of outline form, because I've got a lot of things I want to write now. Some of it is POI, some of it is Valens, and some of it is completely new stuff. I'm hoping that will make everyone happy, including the WTM folks who can't figure out what to write unless they're ripping off me or my friends. 

I will be at FenCon in Dallas this September, though I don't know how long I'll be there on any individual day as I have Very Large Dogs and I can't just leave them in the house for long periods of time. But I will try to make the most of it.

So yes, unfortunately I may not have anything new out until September or October, but I am back to work. I really did need a break where I wasn't thinking about things writing and deadlines or the rest of that. It's been about five years since I've been able to do that. I did tell my Patrons on Patreon and SubscribeStar about it, but I hadn't mentioned elsewhere really, so I figured I'd put this out here.

Hope you're all doing well!

 This is the next Mihalis book (number 3) in the Valens Heritage series (Number 5 for that)

Here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B55DH116

 

And here's the cover:

 

The Audibook Version of Mihalis came out today.

 The Audiobook version of Mihalis came out today on Audible.

Here's the link:

https://www.audible.com/pd/Mihalis-Audiobook/B09SVQWM7C

Valens Heritage #4 - Troy is now up on Amazon!

Here's the Link:

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YS575KH

 Paperback is in process.

Hopefully Next Week

 

Wives Tales Compilation in Paperback

 I know there were some folks who wanted this for this collection, so I finally took care of it. All four of the Wives Tales editions, which each contained a pair of shorts about each of Sean's wives, are now out in one book. 

It's only out as a paperback, because I figure most folks already have the ebooks as they were all sold pretty cheap. The paperback is $4.99 US - price varies in other countries though I kept the royalty to about 25 cents in every case. Sadly in some places (I'm looking at you Australia!) it costs a lot to publish a paperback, so the price is higher than I would have liked.

Here's the Amazon URL for the book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V3Z8STD

So that's 9 stories, one for all seven wives, then two more about situations that people had been asking me about.

Baen books will be publishing one of my Novels later this year

 I don't have the date yet, but I -do- have a cover! :-) 

Yeah, pretty excited about this!

Be Of Good Cheer is now live on Amazon!

 Yes, I put it up two days earlier than I thought I'd be able to, so here it is:

Be Of Good Cheer

 

 

Why I'm not releasing to Audible anymore

 It's plain and simple: I make more money elsewhere.

Yes, even with losing the sales to hundreds of you, if not thousands, I still make MORE money selling on Bookfunnel than I do on audible, even though I sell less than a tenth as many.

Now THINK about that a moment....

I'm selling WAY less than I do on Bookfunnel. But I'm making more money. Why is that?

Maybe because Audible has been ripping me off for the last several years? After all they got CAUGHT doing it at least once, why would they change? 

So yeah, don't care. Done with Audible. The whole reason I didn't DO audiobooks for years was because of the people at Audible (and their customer service will tell you to fuck yourself - they're not nice people).